


Space everywhere, and not any air to breathe

by ice_hot_13



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-03-07 03:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18864889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ice_hot_13/pseuds/ice_hot_13
Summary: An electrician and an HVAC technician, star-crossed lovers on the jobsite.(Sometimes Mars wanted to – not shake Cole, exactly, but take him gently by the shoulders, kiss his cheeks, stroke his hair, look into his pale green eyes and tell him, “no one fucking cares if you kiss me.”)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it's the construction lovestory no one asked for! 
> 
>  
> 
> (Please excuse the skimming-over of ductwork details, i'm an electrician and ducts are a mystery to me)

The first thing Mars did at his new jobsite was get good and lost. The map had seemed fairly simple when presented during the safety orientation: two main buildings, a strip down the middle, a parking garage out back. A1, Plaza, A2, Garage. The overhead had looked simple, and even when he’d followed the safety guy to his new crew’s laydown, Mars had thought he was keeping track of his whereabouts.

As soon as his foreman had laid him out, Mars had realized he’d left his just-printed ID badge sitting on the table in the laydown, and had doubled back to get it. And, immediately, he was lost. His foreman had disappeared into the vast maze of the underground building; Mars was joining the massive project midway through, so most of the walls had been sheetrocked already, and he couldn’t see straight through to any of the hallways he might recognize. He couldn’t spot anyone wearing the same Northland orange vest as him, just a few guys painting in the hallway outside the large room he’d been deposited in and some important-looking guys in polo shirts and pristine hard hats from the general contractor, and neither group seemed terribly approachable.

As much as Mars enjoyed large jobsites, the first few days could be frustrating; the last job where he’d felt this way had been a hospital, with a gigantic underground floor that followed a lettered grid from A through I, and the upstairs floors shaped like a cross with a space in the center instead of a full square, leaving the sections titled B, D, F, and H, which had taken Mars forever to remember. His last few jobs with Northland HVAC had been smaller, everything pretty much within sight, and the disorientation was practically an unfamiliar feeling.

Mars at least knew the door he’d entered through, and headed in that direction. It placed him in a smaller hallway, with the purple walls of unpainted sheetrock, although he had no idea whether they’d taken a left or a right out of the hallway.

Loud beeping came from the other direction, and he turned back; unfortunately, seemingly every scissorlift at the site was the kind that emitted an ear-splitting beeping sound whenever it was moved. A safety precaution, probably, but it always made Mars’ movements jerkier and more hurried, because he wanted the damn sound to stop as fast as possible. The man standing on the lift wore a yellow vest with Loewen Electric lettered across the back, and he was reaching up to attach a ground wire along the length of cable tray that followed the hallway, still empty of cable. This was the next-best thing to finding one of his own guys; electricians were notorious know-it-alls, and, more kindly, had work all over every building so tended to know their way around.

“Hey, sparky!” Mars called, meandering over to the lift. “Do you know where the Northland layout is from here?”

The guy looked down, and Mars’ heart could have stopped. The electrician was – _handsome,_ that was the only word for him, classic and sharp. He had distinct cheekbones, a strong jaw, light eyes that from Mars’ distance were mirror-like in their lightness.

“I’m not sure,” he said, and even his voice was attractive, somehow. Smooth, polished, like the rest of him, even with all the dust and dirt around them. Mars was not a polished person – his favorite aunt had called him a ruffian since he was little, and it was still the most fitting description – and was, at best, scruffy. This guy looked like he belonged in a creased military uniform or tailored suit; something about his smooth cheeks, maybe, or his cool eyes.

“Well, where’s yours? Maybe I wanna defect.” Mars grinned up at him. One great thing about himself, pretty people didn’t make him nervous. He’d always been proud at how a lovely face wouldn’t make him lose his composure. The electrician paused, like he wasn’t sure whether Mars wanted an answer. “Also, I think I passed yours on the way, so it might help.”

The electrician gave him directions – right, left, right again – and said that he vaguely remembered Northland being in the hallway behind the electricians’ room, maybe.

“That’ll get me started,” Mars said, propped an elbow on the bottom rung of the lift. “I’m Mars, by the way.”

“Is that a nickname or a last name?”

“Short for Marshall.”

“Oh.” A pause. “I’m Cole.”

“Well, I’ll see you around.” Mars reached through the rungs to pat Cole’s workboot, and pushed himself back from the lift, heading in the direction of the laydown. When he looked over his shoulder, Cole was standing still, looking down at the wire cutters in his hand like he’d forgotten if he was holding them in the right hand or not.

And, well, then Mars had a mission. He had to wait a while to enact it, and was bubbling with anticipation by the time break finally rolled around. He joined the other four guys on his crew at their laydown – he knew all but one of them from previous jobs, and it had been a happy surprise to feel like he was rejoining an old team. The guy Mars didn’t know introduced himself as Javier, and besides him, there was their foreman Justin, the apprentice AJ, Dave, and Patrick. Mars dropped into the seat beside Patrick.

“So do you know any of the electricians?” he asked, thought it sounded pretty casual. Patrick shrugged a shoulder.

“A few. They’re pretty nice. Loaned us a lift and stuff.”

“There’s a shit ton of them out here,” the older technician – Dave – added, “supposed to be like two hundred guys from Loewen by July. Who’s doing the solar, anyways?” he turned to Javier beside him, who shrugged and asked if the electricians got high time for that, spurning the ever-popular discussion about who got double-time when. Mars finally grabbed his lunch out of his backpack. Patrick and AJ had both somehow already gone to the lunch truck parked outside; Mars would have to follow them out next time.

“Why do you ask?” Patrick elbowed Mars, arched an eyebrow. “You wanna suck his dick, don’t you.”

“Jesus, Mars, this again?” AJ chimed in, grinned across the table, “you were in love with that elevator guy like, ten minutes ago!”

“That _straight_ elevator guy,” Mars corrected, and Patrick snorted a laugh.

“I could have told you that.”

“Just because he talks about chicks he banged over the weekend doesn’t mean he isn’t bi, I could have still had a shot,” Mars argued. This was his favorite part of running into old friends again at work; he’d worked with AJ once before, and Patrick many times, and when Mars was open with guys he already knew, it sort of rolled over into new acquaintances knowing about him. Construction could be pretty rough, but Mars had found a happy spot for himself, making friends with open-minded guys and being so good at his job that he could tell the close-minded ones to go fuck themselves and suffer few consequences.

“ _Which_ electrician, anyways?” Patrick asked, but AJ waved a hand emphatically to stop him, mouth full. His lunch smelled amazing, Mars had to admit, enamored as usual by the smell of Mexican food.

“I wanna guess,” AJ interrupted, and made thoughtful sounds as he chewed. “This building’s crew though, right?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Okay, okay.” AJ frowned in concentration. “The foreman is this like, country boy that played volleyball and went to like, Mormon college. He’s either the straightest dude on the planet, or just, _really_ gay.”

“Which one’s the foreman?” Mars asked, although he was pretty sure he wouldn’t find their foreman off on a scissorlift doing something as time-consuming as putting up a ground wire.

“Andrew. Blond dude.” AJ paused, seemingly couldn’t come up with another descriptor. “Normal height?”

“I don’t think it was him.”

“Who else is there?” AJ asked Patrick, but went on without waiting for an answer. “There’s an apprentice, but he smells terrible, and I don’t think a gay guy would be that oblivious, y’know? Okay… the other journeyman’s too old for you, there’s a girl, and another dude but Sal’s way too short to be your type.”

“I don’t have a type,” Mars said, but Patrick snorted again. Fine, Mars had a type. Classic handsome, would look distinguished in glasses, pretty. He dated women less frequently, but he fell for women with similar traits: serious, smarter than him, willowy. There was a lot of overlap. Mars probably had some kind of attachment problem, he thought, given how he swooned for aloofness.

“It’s that one guy,” Patrick said definitively, “the one that was kind of a dick last week.”

“Oh, yeah,” AJ snickered, “I should have known.”

“What’d he do?”

“Nothing really,” Patrick assured, “we parked our lift in the middle of the hallway, and he wanted to go around with his lift, so we said we’d be like five more minutes – we were like, sitting in the cable tray, it was inconvenient – and he stood there and watched us until we moved.”

“Typical electrician, then,” Mars said. Patrick grinned. “So, okay, yes, it’s that one. He’s hella hot, you can’t blame me. So you don’t know him.”

“Do you mean, do I know if he partakes in the dick sucking,” Patrick drawled, “and no, I don’t know. Didn’t come up in conversation that one time I asked him about the FSD’s, believe it or not.”

“Is he doing those?” Mars asked. Fire smoke dampers attached to the ducts, after all, and the more time Cole spent near the ducts, the more likely Mars would run into him. Ducts were, after all, Mars’ entire job.

“How do you have it this bad when you’ve only been here since this morning?”

Break ended too soon, although it didn’t seem like Mars was going to be finding out more about Cole from the guys anyways. They didn’t know him. That wasn’t much of a setback though; knowing how receptive Cole was beforehand was merely a bonus, and Mars could live without it. He was adept at being subtle and at being upfront; hitting on dudes at a construction site was a delicate, dangerous act, after all.

**~~**

Seemingly every trade other than the electricians started at six AM; Cole always felt like he was running late, strolling into work at seven and passing people an hour deep into their own workday. Many of his fellow electricians complained about how their contract didn’t allow them to start at six, but Cole didn’t really mind. He liked the hour of extra sleep, and he liked the end of the day even more, the quiet that descended over the jobsite after just about everyone else went home. It was his most peaceful hour, and with the hallways so empty, he could even play music out loud on his phone, something that made him oddly self-conscious at any other time. The empty quiet was calming in its vastness.

Tuesday was the all-hands safety meeting first thing in the morning, and he trailed along behind a group of noisy ironworkers on his way there, having yet to see anyone he knew. He didn’t like standing alone during safety meetings, felt awkward and like he didn’t know what to do with his hands, even though no one was looking at him.

His problem was both solved and exacerbated when, standing on the outer ring of the assembled workers, he spotted Mars. Immediately, Cole’s heart raced a little faster. He didn’t know Mars, but he didn’t really have to, to know he should stay away. Mars was exactly the kind of guy that would get Cole into trouble: for starters, he was so terribly attractive that looking at him made Cole’s mouth go dry. Mars had playful brown eyes and scruffy stubble, a gauged earring in one ear, a sleeve of tattoos covering one arm, huge hands and dirty coveralls; Cole’s knees felt weak from looking at him. Worse, he was friendly and personable, the kind of chatty that Cole could easily misinterpret as flirting, and it would all leave him blushing for no reason, giving himself away.

Mars didn’t seem to have the same plan, though, because he beelined right for Cole and dropped his backpack down like he was planning to stay there. “Hey!” Mars beamed at Cole, like he was pleased Cole had been so easy to find. “Surprised I found this place in time. It’s a fucking maze in here, isn’t it?”

“I’ve been here four months and I still only know my way around the plaza,” Cole said, because Mars was being nice and didn’t deserve to be snubbed just because Cole was useless at talking to attractive guys.

He was glad when Mars went quiet as the meeting started; it made him nervous, when he stood with people who talked through it, like the general contractor’s safety guy would stop the meeting and point right at him to eject him.

“And what’s the leading cause of death in our industry?” the man leading the meeting was saying into his too-loud microphone. Confident shouts of “falls!” came from the crowd of construction workers. “Well, no, it’s the drive to work, but what about once you get to work?” A pause, and then another, more confused sounding yell of “falls!” came again. “Right, falls!”

Mars leaned close to Cole, nudged him with a gentle elbow. “Kinda misleading for it to be the driving, that’s not technically _at work.”_

“Unless you get run down in the parking lot,” Cole whispered back, absurdly proud when Mars snorted a little laugh.

“How does someone become a speaker that does safety but also like, crowd pump-up shit?” Mars asked, as the safety guy told them that McCarter Steel had been the _loudest_ last week in cheering for – well, Cole had no idea. Safety?

Mars didn’t really step back to his original spot; Cole wanted to lean into the clean, smoky scent of him. How did Mars smell like a campfire? That was completely ridiculous. He was quiet for the remainder of the meeting, but Cole still couldn’t pay attention to anything but him. It was stupid, Mars was just a random guy he’d probably never run into again, who’d probably forgotten Cole’s name, and would forget meeting him by this time next week. Cole had to stop getting worked up over his reaction to attractive men he met in passing, but somehow, it caught him off guard every time, made him feel guilty and panicky and obvious.

“I’ll see you around,” Mars said after the meeting, smiled at him, and Cole didn’t know whether he hoped to see Mars again or not.

~~~

Tuesday and Wednesday passed without another Mars sighting; Cole hated his own sulky mood, the way he peeked into rooms looking for Mars. He was ready to believe Mars had changed jobsites when, Thursday at lunch, someone climbed onto the picnic table beside him, and it was Mars.

“There you are!” Mars greeted him, grinning, “I wondered where you had lunch.” Cole frequented the farther set of picnic tables, covered by an awning but exposed to the wind and sun, and less popular because it was a longer walk. Cole’s coworkers tended to go to their cars, or to the lunch area by the better food truck.

“I thought you’d changed sites,” Cole said, and regretted it; was it obvious he’d been looking for Mars? Was that weird?

“No, I was just out moving shit around. We got about a million deliveries at once, and I was on the forklift. We got it all set up in one area, and then got told we had to move it, so it was a whole thing.” He was on Cole’s left, and his short sleeves exposed his entire tattoo, Cole sneaking a look to see. It was space-themed, black ink towards his wrist rising up into more color by his shoulder, featuring an astronaut, old-fashioned rocket, and what had to be the planet Mars, rusty red and surrounded by stars. Cole blushed when Mars caught him looking.

“That’s cool,” Cole offered, “the whole theme, and everything. Mars, and all.”

“Neat, huh?” Mars looked pleased at the compliment, “I’ve always liked the nickname. Is Cole short for anything?”

“Uh, yeah,” Cole said, Mars already peering at the ID badge stuck in his front vest pocket.

“Coleridge,” Mars read, but it didn’t sound teasing.

“The poet,” Cole sighed.

“What’d he write?”

“Um, pretty old stuff. It’s where people get the phrase about an albatross, and, uh. Water everywhere and not a drop to drink.” He felt ridiculous quoting it. The worst was among the most famous: _a sadder and a wiser man._ Cole thought about it often, about how the knowing was the worst part of anything terrible.

“I like it,” Mars opened the tupperware of food he’d brought, and as he told Cole about how he lived with his sister and brother in law, and how they were great cooks and he had leftovers for days, Cole caught sight of the rest of Mars’ tattoo, finishing on the inside of his wrist. The astronaut held a striped flag, filled in with watercolor-like colors, watery but visible against the black shading of everything else.

Cole had been to a pride parade, once. His friend Millie had taken him, claiming that because she had no lesbian friends and as her best friend, he had to step in. He’d agreed, privately curious, wondering – ridiculously – if it was about to be a turning point in his life, trigger some kind of acceptance within himself, that he’d leave confident and – and _out._ He didn’t; he felt cowed by how out everyone else was, felt pathetic in comparison, shrank back further. He could never, he was sure, be as out as the guys he saw there, wasn’t brave enough, didn’t want to be so looked at, was _terrified._ He hadn’t even used the event as an excuse to come out to Millie, which had seemed so attainable at the start of the day, and impossible by the end.

But, at the parade, Cole had seen the flags. The one he recognized, but also others, and he was fairly sure that was why the little flag tattooed on Mars’ inner wrist looked so familiar. Pink, purple, and blue. He was sure that had been one of them.

He could ask, but it wasn’t like he could pretend he thought it was for a country or something and that he had no clue it was about sexual orientation. He couldn’t even remember all the other flags he’d seen. Would asking be something a normal guy would do? Mars had turned his wrist back over, having finished unwrapping his fork from the napkin it had been wound in, and the opportunity had passed.

“Mars!” someone yelled, from the food truck parked at the other end of the awning; one of the Northland guys was waving to get Mars’ attention. “Give me three dollars!”

“That’s AJ,” Mars stood, disentangled himself form the picnic table, “I’ll be right back. You want anything?” he asked, and Cole blinked up at him in surprise.

“Um, no, thanks.” Was he blushing?

“Right back,” Mars said, patted Cole’s shoulder before loping over; Cole was definitely blushing now. Mars was so physical, it was probably just his nature, and he didn’t know that Cole nearly shivered every time Mars touched him. Cole scrambled for his phone once Mars had walked away, googled _pink purple blue flag._ By the time Mars returned, Cole had hurriedly gotten rid of the web page, and was trying to breathe normally. Mars was bi, so that could mean, possibly, that he _was_ flirting with Cole. Was it arrogant to assume that, just because Mars was attracted to men? What if Mars _wasn’t,_ and it was just a symbolic tattoo for something else? In solidarity, or something?

“He was short four, that liar,” Mars announced, sliding back onto the bench beside Cole; he sat sideways, propped an elbow on the table and looked right at Cole. “Apprentices, right?” His knees were spread wide, so he could still be pretty close to Cole. His eyes were bright, like he was really interested in all this, and it made Cole wonder again about the tattoo. Even if he did ask, even if Mars confirmed he was bi, what the hell would Cole say? It had been years since he’d told anyone what he was, and he could hardly span all that time and pain with a flippant “me too.” Or, well, he couldn’t even do that; Cole wasn’t bi. He’d desperately, desperately wanted to be, after he’d had to accept that his attraction to men wasn’t going away. He wanted the choice, wanted to _want_ that, because simply accepting loneliness wasn’t something he was strong enough to do, either.

Mars was looking at him; despite having such expressive eyes, it was surprisingly hard to read what he was thinking. Something about the openness of his face, though, made Cole blurt out “why the tattoo?”

Mars gave him a crooked grin. “It’s space, because, y’know, Mars,” he said, but he was holding out his arm, turning it over, “or d’you mean that part?” Cole was too mortified to respond, just stared down at the little watercolor flag. Its colors trickled off the stripes, fading into the surrounding gray. “He’s claiming Mars for bisexuals everywhere,” Mars said; his grin had softened, and Cole was fairly sure he had dimples beneath the scruffy beard. “Is that weird? Like, a convoluted analogy, or something? Maybe he’s just announcing that Mars is bi? By putting a flag?” Mars shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not sure if I’m the astronaut or the planet in this scenario, but exploring who I am feels as profound as space discovery sometimes, so I added it.”

 _I understand,_ Cole could say, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t. “That’s cool,” he managed, “like everything’s already out there and you’re discovering it.” Even that was way too much; Mars was _looking_ at him, and it made Cole say things, made him pour his whole heart out. He scrambled to stand, felt himself blushing scarlet. “I gotta go, our lunch is over at, uh. See you,” he managed, and all-but fled. Surely Mars knew that the electricians had a forty minute lunch, and it was only twelve nineteen; Cole spent his remaining twenty minutes hiding in his truck, trying to convince himself he hadn’t been obvious.


	2. Chapter 2

                Mars was barely able to contain his excitement throughout the rest of the workday. Even spotting a glimpse of Cole, an entire hallway’s length away from him and oblivious to his presence, made his heart thud with anticipation. While Cole had ducked out of lunch early, Mars couldn’t help but feel encouraged anyways. He was _positive_ Cole was, in some way or another, into guys. There was no way someone who hadn’t gone through similar feelings as Mars could have said something so oddly true; identity was a discovery of things already out there, waiting to be found, and Cole _understood._ Of course, Cole’s nervous blushing and subsequent disappearance hinted that Cole was neither out nor entirely accepting of himself, and Mars had a rule about getting involved with guys like that, but – but it was _Cole._ Mars had just met him, but already had such an incredible fondness for Cole’s vacillation between electrician confidence and his own softness, the way he smiled at Mars like he was offering something secret.

                It wasn’t like Mars could share his new discovery with anyone at work; announcing _that cute electrician is into dudes_ to people who actually knew Cole seemed like a horrible invasion of privacy, but he was dying to talk about it. The house was empty when he got home after work, and by the time his sister got home from work, he was incapable of keeping his enthusiasm to himself anymore.

                “Kat, guess what,” he called from the kitchen, the moment he heard her open the front door. It was easy to tell that it was Kat and not her husband Pete; Pete wouldn’t be caught dead flinging his boat shoes to the ground, while it sounded like Kat dropped her heels from shoulder height, somehow.

                “What?” she appeared barefoot at the door, work tote slung over her shoulder. Students’ papers peeped out of the top as usual, and spilled onto the kitchen table when she deposited the bag there. Pete would come by later, straighten the piles for her as she graded, kiss her forehead, and sneakily draw tiny cat sketches on as many papers as he could before she noticed. Her fifth graders reportedly delighted in the drawings of Mrs. Jacobson’s exceptionally lazy cat. “What is that? I want some.” Mars obligingly handed her half of his sandwich.

                “This really cute electrician at work is definitely into dudes,” Mars announced; he’d been expecting her concerned look, he really had, but it still made his heart sink a little. Somehow, it was worse that she didn’t launch into a plea for him to be careful, but made a noticeable effort to put her worry away and smile for him.                

                “How cute?” she asked instead. In the entryway, the front door opened again, and Mars smiled at the sound of Pete neatly placing his keys on the wall rack.

                “Green eyes, and curls.” Mars had been delighted to find that out today, seeing Cole at lunch without his hardhat. His hair was dark, shorter on the sides and left long enough on top to curl just enough, rumpled and probably very soft.

                “God save me from green-eyed men,” Kat sighed, shaking her head.

                “Hey, honey!” Pete yelled from the entryway – probably still carefully untying his laces, “it’s me, your brown-eyed husband! That’s your favorite eye color, right?” He popped into the kitchen to say hi to both of them, and then disappeared upstairs, shouting to the cat, Princess Lady, that her daddy was home.

                “Mars,” Kat leaned against the counter, and he determinedly didn’t look at her, busily wiping the cutting board of crumbs.

                “It’s fine, honest. It’s one of those giant jobsites, where you have an ID card and have to badge in and out. Really official. And it’s on federal land,” he added, although that probably didn’t matter. “Speeding tickets are like eight hundred dollars.”

                “I’m not saying don’t live your life,” Kat argued, “or meet people at work, but just, be careful.”

                “I’m very careful.” Sort of, anyways. He had a new policy that he thought made him careful, or maybe just preemptively reckless. He didn’t really think carefulness would have saved him last time, though, or what carefulness even looked like in this situation. “What are we doing for dinner?”

                “Pete’s been texting me all day about tacos. Didn’t he text you?”

                “I have no service at work,” Mars shrugged. His phone lay in his backpack somewhere; he hadn’t even taken it out at lunch, too enamored with talking to Cole. “I’m sure I also have nine hundred messages about tacos.”

                “So, tacos?” Pete asked, coming into the room, arms full with the cat. She wasn’t fat, just overall very large, and her penchant for stretching out as much as she could didn’t make her any tinier, either. Pete held her upside-down the way she liked, so she was stretched out in his arms like a sunbather, purring. It was a typical evening for them; dinner together, Pete would spend some time fruitlessly trying to clicker-train Princess Lady, Kat would grade papers, Mars would water the potted flowers by the front door. It was nice.

                Sometimes, Mars was tempted to think that he was lucky to have ended up living with them; it was fun, and had served to make his close relationship with his younger sister and brother-in-law even closer. He could almost pretend like the inciting incident had been nothing more than a nice, sit-down breakfast where they’d all come up with the idea that Mars living with them would be enjoyable for everyone. Mars didn’t know if it was a healthy coping tactic, but he liked to forget about bad things. 

                He liked to forget that his boyfriend had broken up with him two years ago, and had stayed in their shared apartment while Mars moved out. He wanted to forget that he’d moved out because living alone while also coping with a broken left arm, right wrist, two ribs, and whole heart just felt too daunting. He needed to forget that he’d met his plumber boyfriend at work, that excitement about being on the same jobsite again for the first time in three years had made him reckless with shows of affection, and that after seeing how Mars had been attacked after work, his boyfriend had been just too scared to stay with him. Somehow, the only thing Mars had truly forgotten was the way it felt before everything had happened. He’d been in love; he couldn’t remember the feeling, but he desperately wanted to.

~~

                Mars tried to keep his cool for the next week. He found Cole during lunch, but didn’t do anything that might scare him off. Cole was gradually becoming more talkative – and _funnier,_ Mars was delighted to discover, Cole was dryly hilarious – and Mars’ heart felt full to bursting when Cole smiled at the sight of him.

Tuesday morning, he was a couple minutes late to the safety meeting, having been caught up in hunting for the grinder his foreman swore they had but couldn’t find. It meant he wouldn’t have time to search around for Cole to join him, and Mars was sighing to himself as he walked over to the amassed crowd of construction workers.

“We’ve just reached two million man hours,” the safety guy was all-but screaming this information, thanks to the too-loud sound system, and Mars winced.

“Hey,” he heard, tried not to whip around the moment he heard Cole’s voice. Cole had found him, offered a shyer-than-normal smile.

“Cole! What’s up?” Mars absolutely beamed. Cole had never sought him out first; Mars wanted to hug him.

“You’re never late, I thought you’d died or something, and then you’d be _that guy_ who ruined the perfect safety record.”

“While I’d love to ruin Megaphone’s day, I was just looking for our stupid grinder. No one can find it, and I have this one anchor in the ceiling – it’s just a little bit off, and it’s fucking up the whole system.”

“Just the one?” Cole tilted his head a little, “I bet no one would notice if I gave you our grinder for a minute. It’s brand new.”

“Electricians,” Mars shook his head, “do you guys even know how to use things that aren’t brand new?”

Cole wrinkled his nose, eyes bright. “You mean, use _old_ things? How barbaric.”

“What a bunch of divas. It’d be great to borrow it though, thanks. You’d save me the ten hours I’d spend looking for ours.”

As if instinctively drawn by the threat that one of their brand new tools was being given to another trade, one of Cole’s coworkers sidled up to them. “Is this your HVAC bff, Cole?” he asked, grinning. Cole stiffened. “What’s up, dude,” the other electrician nodded to Mars. He seemed perfectly friendly, but Cole was biting his lip and looked like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t, eyes down. “Is there any way you could get me a half inch male adapter? I’m working on my house and I’m literally one short.”

“Sure,” Mars shrugged. “Save you from your twenty-ninth trip to Home Depot?”

“If I never see their parking lot again, it’ll be too soon.”

Mars left the meeting in a great mood, telling Cole he’d find him in the IDF after grabbing the copper fitting for the other electrician. He grabbed the male adapter and headed down the hallway, easily finding Cole in the small room; Cole had the empty shell of an electrical panel laid across two carts, a brand-new knockout kit open beside him.

“You guys have the coolest shit,” Mars sighed, gazing at the case. It was so new, the larger and less popular punches were still wrapped in plastic. “Can you give this to that guy?” he held up the copper fitting, and Cole nodded, watched Mars set it on his cart. Mars wanted to stop and examine every sticker on Cole’s toolbox, but that would be weird, probably.

“Here, um.” Cole ducked to grab the grinder off the bottom of the cart, held it out to Mars, eyes darting away. Mars’ hand touched his momentarily, covering Cole’s fingertips.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep it nice,” Mars promised, voice soft in the face of Cole’s anxious expression. He wanted to give Cole so much more softness, to draw Cole forward, into his arms. He paused like that, frozen, until the bang of a Hilti shot nearby made Cole jolt back.

“Sure,” Cole mumbled, ducking his head and turning back to the panel. Mars’ heart sank, missing the way Cole had stood beside him only that morning at the safety meeting, whispering in his ear and smiling only for him. It had been the first time Cole had found him first; it had felt significant, and he’d thought that would carry on.

When Mars went to return the grinder fifteen minutes later, Cole wasn’t in the IDF, and Mars had to leave the grinder on his cart. He did pause to glance at the toolbox, disheartened to find the sticker choice pretty impersonal. Local hockey team logo, some tool brands, the usual union ones, a helmets to hard hats sticker, which made Mars wonder if Cole had been military before becoming an electrician. The only thing mildly interesting was a small one, tucked into the bottom corner of the front face, that read “Farley Heirloom Seed Co.” with a picture of a tomato. Mars smiled, imagining Cole watering little sprouting plants.

Cole was absent from their usual table at lunch, and Mars’ day was further soured by a reluctant hour of overtime. He wasn’t fond of the single-hour OT; it was practically nothing after taxes, and just served to make the commute home worse. He was dragging at the thought of the longer drive as he headed out afterwards, pushing through the turnstiles after waving his badge at the scanner.

“Hey, Mars.” It was Cole, lingering at the start of the parking lot. It was three thirty exactly; the other electricians were surely already in their cars and halfway down the block. “Sorry I missed you at lunch.” He didn’t offer an explanation, but looked so terribly guilty that Mars wanted to hug him.

“It’s cool, I got to listen to AJ tell me about the work he wants to do on his truck for a half hour straight,” Mars grinned, “it was so educational.” When Cole started to walk towards the parking lot, he looked back to make sure Mars was following, which Mars was more than happy to do. He filled Cole in on AJ’s ridiculous plans, on what they’d done during their bonus hour of the day, how his brother-in-law had spent lunch sending Mars pictures of sushi rolls to heavily hint what at his vote for their dinner. Cole was enthusiastic when the conversation turned to food, and before long, Mars realized he’d been standing beside Cole’s truck for nearly half an hour. Cole seemed to realize it at the same moment, and frowned at his watch, biting his lip.

“Sorry,” he said, shoulders slumping, “I shouldn’t keep you. The drive home will be longer now. Unless you ride a motorcycle?” he glanced towards the couple still parked in the lot. Mars laughed.

“I’m flattered you think I’m the type, but no, I’m too scared of dying in a horrible accident for that. That’s mine.” He pointed to his small SUV, a row away but visible with all the empty spaces in the lot. “Can’t go wasting all my bravery on the commute home, I need to save that shit so I can talk to cute guys fearlessly.” A little bold, probably, but he thought he saw a flicker of interest in Cole’s pale eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow!” Mars made his exit, and when he snuck a look over his shoulder, Cole was running a hand through his hair, dazed look on his face.

Mars may have forgotten what it felt like to be this happy, but at least, he was discovering, he hadn’t forgotten how to hope for it.


	3. Chapter 3

 

Mars was terrifying in a way that other attractive men had never been. This was somehow more and less frightening – more, because he did things like talk about being brave enough to talk to cute guys while looking right at Cole, and declare in no uncertain terms that he was into guys, but also less, because there was so much warmth behind it all, an openness that floored Cole. Cole was far from an open person, and Mars was a million miles away from him in that aspect, on the complete other side of the scale, inviting and sharing and _open._ It was scary to be around someone so attractive who actually seemed to be into Cole, and yet, Cole couldn’t ever make himself leave, drawn into Mars’ gravitational pull by how welcome Mars made him feel there.

It was exhilarating and terrifying and confusing, and Cole had to admit he was having a hard time focusing on anything else. His daydreaming was made painfully clear when his attention drifted while he drove the lift; the lift featured an attached workstation, a selection of cubbies in hard plastic that hooked over the railing so he could have somewhere to put all his hardware and tools, and it wasn’t anchored in place, so his jolting stop made the entire heavy contraption shift, and suddenly he’d pinched his forearm between the lift railing and the shelving unit. A few mumbled curses and he’d freed himself with minimal skin tearing, leading him to think it wouldn’t be much of an injury. Of course, within an hour and a half, the skin around the center cut had bloomed black and purple, and it looked more like an animal bite than a pinch point wound.

                He was standing at his cart, examining his forearm, when Mars wandered up; maybe he had work to do in the exhaust room too, but, Cole dared to hope, he might have just been looking for Cole. He was dirtier than usual but just as sunny, although his bright smile faded when he saw what Cole was looking at.

                “That sucks, what happened?” he asked. Cole tilted his head back at the lift.

                “It’s not too bad, really.” He held out his arm, frowning down at it some more. More ugly than painful, which was a good thing as far as he was concerned.

                “Here, I’ll fix it,” Mars grinned, and kissed two fingertips before placing them very gently on Cole’s bruise. “I have a doctorate in medicine. I once performed neurosurgery.” He smiled like it was nothing; Cole felt himself blushing, and just so – so happy, because of this HVAC guy who had found him out of nowhere and treated him gently like he wasn’t fragile but precious, flirted shamelessly but also looked at him with very real concern for even a tiny injury. Who was looking at Cole with the slightest, faintest anxiety in his eyes, like he suddenly thought that maybe he’d just gone a step too far.

“I hope you have malpractice insurance, because I don’t think you were aggressive enough with treatment, and you’re liable for that,” Cole said, and the brilliant smile it got from Mars was somehow all the push Cole needed – he leaned over and kissed Mars.

It was quick, soft, and Cole’s heart was racing before he’d even pulled back. He’d – he’d kissed Mars, kissed a guy right in the middle of work, what had he _done_ – but Mars had an entirely new look on his face, dazed and dreamy, like it would never occur to him to pretend he hadn’t liked that.

“I’ve been _dying_ to do that,” he said, and some of the roaring fear in Cole’s chest settled, his breathing steading.

“Yeah?”

“Shit, Cole, _yeah.”_ Mars looked down, and, apparently realizing he didn’t wear a watch, reached for Cole’s wrist to check his. “It’s your break now, isn’t it? I’m planning on irresponsibly disappearing for a while, why don’t you come with me?”

The exhaust room was filled with gigantic ducts, and led to a tunnel-like area in the back that led to rooms Cole had never seen, and Mars led him to the back, around the wall into the sheltered tunnel. Cole had no idea what to do and was eager to go along when Mars backed him against the wall; Cole was nearly taller, but Mars was broader, and it felt sheltering to be pressed between him and the wall, Mars leaning a forearm along the wall so Cole couldn’t even see into the room they’d left. When he kissed Cole, it was gentle, slow, like he really had been dying to do it and now wanted to drink in every moment. Cole forgot where they were entirely; all he could remember how to do was kiss Mars back, clutch at Mars’ shirt and keep him close.

When Cole had to drag himself away, already three minutes late to go back to work, Mars reached to touch his arm. “This isn’t a one-time fluke, right?” he asked, and his tone was playful but his eyes were hopeful. “You’re the guy I make out with constantly now, right?”

“Constantly,” Cole promised, could hardly believe that Mars wanted to kiss him _more,_ had wanted it at all.

Mars disappeared back to his work area, and Cole was left alone in the exhaust room, blinking in disoriented confusion at the conduit he’d been working on only twenty minutes ago. He’d kissed Mars. He’d kissed a man at work. He’d kissed _Mars,_ sweet, witty, honest Mars. Without Mars right in front of him, it was suddenly so much scarier, so much more real without his blissful bubble, and Cole could barely believe it had happened at all. He was close to panicking about it, could barely breathe around the fear, because what had he been _thinking,_ except – it was Mars. Cole barely knew him, technically, but he felt so familiar already. Cole may have wanted to do something insane, but, Mars did too. Mars was there, kissing Cole back just as enthusiastically.

It could be okay. Mars would be there with him. Cole could be brave, for Mars.

~~

                Mars was still half-convinced he’d dreamed the entire thing. He’d been trying to be so careful, to flirt with Cole only subtly, to be gentle so skittish Cole wouldn’t disappear on him, to be upfront but not pushy. All he’d wanted was to convince Cole that he was genuinely interested, that flirting with him wasn’t a trick or an accident, a goal that had seemed nearly impossible and a task that had seemed hauntingly familiar. His ex-boyfriend had needed convincing, and he’d run at the first instance of trouble, but – but Mars wasn’t thinking about that. He wasn’t letting it discourage him from liking someone slightly unavailable.

                But Cole wasn’t unavailable. Cole had, unthinkably, kissed Mars first. As anxious as Cole seemed about the whole thing, he _wanted_ it, so much that he’d been the one to actually do something about it. For all Mars’ flirting, they’d still been solidly just friends, and Cole had been the one to change that.

                A week and a half later, and Mars still felt dazed. Suddenly, kissing Cole was part of his day, sneaking into hidden corners and kissing the most handsome man Mars had ever seen. Mars hadn’t given much thought to what it would be like to kiss Cole, hadn’t dared think it was actually a possibility, but it was still nothing like he’d expected. Cole melted for him, let Mars practically pick him up and put him places so he could be kissed thoroughly, _wanted_ it so much.

                On Friday, Mars was too close to where his foreman was working to be able to find Cole at ten, to sneak away during Cole’s break; every other day, he’d gone looking for Cole, so he was surprised to look up and see Cole lingering by his cart.

                “Justin’s right over there,” Mars nodded towards the next room in explanation, and Cole shrugged a shoulder, smiled.

                “I know, I was just talking to him about the FSD’s.” He climbed up to sit on Mars’ parked scissorlift, watching Mars sort through hardware.

                “Oh, so you’re in charge of those now, are you?”

“Didn’t you hear? I’m the GF now.” Cole’s smile was teasing, and Mars wished he didn’t have to skip their usual sneak-away kissing.

“I’m sure only prodigies get to skip right over foreman and go straight to GF.” Mars didn’t even notice Patrick until he was nearly right behind Cole, coming over with a roto-hammer in his hand.

“What’s up, Mars?” he said in greeting, making Cole jump in surprise. “Hey,” Patrick added in Cole’s direction, grinned at Mars, “oh, is this your-” he started, but Mars shot him a warning look before he could finish his sentence with something like _boyfriend_ or, knowing Patrick, _dude whose dick you want._ “Favorite electrician,” Patrick finished smoothly, but that may have been worse, for how Cole squirmed and reddened.

“I gotta get back to work,” Cole blurted, and then he was disappearing down the hallway, quickly out of sight. Mars heaved a sigh, leveled a glower at Patrick.

“Killing my game, dude,” he said, because he couldn’t say _he’s sensitive, be gentler._

“Sorry, sorry. I just came to see if you knew where the quarter inch bits are.”

Mars wasn’t oblivious enough to think that Cole wouldn’t freak out; Mars didn’t know him on a very personal level – _wanted_ to, so badly, but just didn’t – but it was easy to see that Cole wanted everything to be as secret as possible. Maybe the reasons for that were the self-loathing kind that would break Mars’ heart, or maybe he was just generally private, Mars didn’t know, but he wasn’t surprised when Cole balked the next morning at the sight of Mars just before ten AM.

“It’s okay,” Mars soothed, “I found somewhere new.” He knew the half-room behind the ducts would feel too open for Cole, and had spent probably too much of the previous day searching for somewhere new. His new secret little spot was perfect; there was a small space in between the buildings, like a temporary courtyard open to the sky but lowered to basement level, and within that little space, there was plumbing running up the wall that required its own enclosure. The enclosure was still waiting for its final piece of sheetrock, and when they stepped through the opening and into the depth of the space, no one could see them from any angle.

“Perfect,” Cole said, and Mars wanted to tell him _I get you,_ but instead he just pulled Cole to him and kissed him hard.

He didn’t know Cole’s _why’s,_ but he knew what they made Cole do, knew the things Cole felt without knowing the reasons, a depthless knowing that made Mars want to be closer, to be brought down past the shallow things he’d learned from watching. It was unmooring, to know just how Cole liked to be kissed but nothing about where he came from, know what would make him laugh but not anything that he’d been through. Mars was stuck adrift, in Cole’s orbit but not any closer, and all Mars wanted was to be brought in closer.

This was enough, he told himself, cupped Cole’s cheek in his hand and listened to Cole’s sigh, for now, Mars could live here in the shallow water, in the farthest reaches of the atmosphere, this was enough.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience waiting for this chapter!!! I've been busy but return with a new chapter and a certification in Instrumentation!! Yay!!

                Cole felt personally targeted by the danger tape strung across the entrance that led to their secret closet. The sign warned them of overhead work, and the fact that it was red danger tape and not yellow caution tape meant that Cole had no choice but to sigh and turn around. They must have started the work just before noon, because it was only halfway through Cole’s lunch break now.

                “Overhead work?” Mars grumbled from behind him, squinting into the gray sky, “there’s not even a ceiling.”

                “Probably those guys on the boom lifts up there,” Cole’s shoulders slumped. He couldn’t go back to the first room they’d used; anyone could walk in at any moment, and it was bad enough that people knew Mars was _something_ to him already. Cole couldn’t. “Oh, wait,” he reached for his key ring, held it up triumphantly, “they’re locking the electric rooms now that we’re turning on power to some things.” The one he was working in was especially out of the way, and there wasn’t much in there, so the likelihood that anyone would come in was pretty low. Besides, they’d have to unlock the door first, and that would be noisy. Mars nodded eagerly.

                “I feel like this makes me a honorary electrician, in a way, doesn’t it?”

                “Pretty sure it doesn’t work like that.”

                The electric room was perfect. The door locked behind them, and in the far corner, Mars kissed Cole over and over, the entire world shrinking to their shared corner.

                Before they went their separate ways at the end of lunch, Cole lingered for a moment longer, Mars kissing him again, slower. “You,” Mars told him, skimming his thumb along Cole’s cheekbone, “are the best part of my day.”

It was soft and earnest and Cole was still thinking about it three hours later, as he sat in traffic and stared at the unmoving car in front of him. Mars liked him; Mars’ day was made better because of his feelings towards a guy. How could anyone think there was something wrong with that? It looked different on the other side of things; Cole wasn’t judging himself, he was looking at Mars, and Mars’ happiness was obviously faultless. And Mars didn’t _care_ if anyone discovered that about him; it was right there on his arm, the flag that proclaimed he’d gone exploring for his own identity and found it, wanted to claim it as his own instead of trying to disown it.

Maybe Cole could talk about it, he thought, and before he could change his mind, he texted his closest friend, Millie, to ask if she was home. She called him instead of replying, naturally.

“Are you driving?” she accused by way of greeting.

“I was stopped.”

“Cole!”

“I wanted to see if you’re home, maybe I can stop by?” He flexed his fingers anxiously around the steering wheel, tried to distract himself by thinking about how he’d get to her apartment from the freeway he was on. He was nearly to the expressway, he’d take that, and turn right.

“Yeah, my shift isn’t until later. Come by!” She paused. “Anything wrong?”

“No.” He said goodbye before she could question it, and thankfully, the drive wasn’t far from there. Before he knew it, he was knocking on her front door, inciting barking from the other side. Millie answered the door already in her nurse’s scrubs, her Corgi prancing around behind her.

“We’re still learning that burglars and murderers won’t knock first,” Millie sighed, “ _still._ The people who knock aren’t the ones who’ll kill us, Lilac.”

“You never know,” Cole followed her inside, and he took a stool at the kitchen counter as Millie went back to making her dinner for work. He watched her move between the stove and the refrigerator a few times, frozen in the moment before speaking. It was _time_ to tell her, he’d decided. She was his best friend, one of the few people he still had, and – and he wanted her to know.

“Want anything?” she asked from inside the refrigerator.

“I’m okay.”

“Do you think a smoothie would melt if I took it to work?” she cocked her hip as she studied the freezer next. “My travel mug’s pretty well insulate.”

“Mills, I’m gay.”

The words hung; Millie turned towards him, and Cole clenched his jaw, waiting. He’d relived the moment where he’d told his parents so many times, but this was the most vivid rendition, like he’d been dropped right back into it. There had been shock on their faces, and that was only the first emotion. It wasn’t, he realized abruptly, present now.

“Why don’t you look surprised?” he blurted, before she had the chance to say anything, because she didn’t look surprised, particularly. She smiled at him, and it was warm, comforting, but not surprised.

“I’m so happy you can tell me,” she said, and she circled the counter to hug him, and she was telling him she was proud, loved him, all the things he’d wanted to hear the first time around and hadn’t, but – she didn’t sound surprised. He wanted to ask _did you already know?_ but it seemed like an awful position to put her in, and anyway, he couldn’t form the words.

“Of course,” he managed, “it’s you, so.” Millie beamed. This was _good,_ he tried to remind himself. It was good, it was good, it was his best friend still liking him, but – it wasn’t the relief it should have been. _How could you tell,_ he wanted to ask, because – she _knew?_ His own parents hadn’t known. If she could tell, could other people? Mars could. How had Mars known it would be okay to flirt with Cole, if he hadn’t been able to _tell?_

                “It’s nerve-wracking coming out to people,” Millie said, gave him a sympathetic smile, and he could only nod mutely. If he didn’t think about something more positive, he was going to fall apart.

                “There’s a guy,” he said, and it wasn’t exactly free of anxiety, but it did make warmth bloom into a tiny sun in his chest. “At work. I think he likes me.”

                “Yeah?” Millie bounced on her toes, eyes lighting up. “Is he cute? What’s he like? Is he an electrician, too?”

                “No, he’s HVAC. He’s cute.” Cole felt his ears warming. “I dunno, I don’t really know that it’ll go anywhere outside of work, but. He’s sweet.”

Cole didn’t know Mars that well, but he at least knew that – Mars was sweet. Mars touched him impossibly softly, looked at him with such gentle longing, and Cole was so _scared_ of that, to have Mars look at him like that with other people around, everyone would know. It was all on Mars’ face, and while Cole was hard to read, Mars was an open book. Cole was just too scared to be what was written there, to be the desire of a heart worn on a sleeve.

\--

“I don’t know how to make it _go_ anywhere,” Mars sighed. He was taking up the entire couch with his melodramatic wallowing, but Pete didn’t seem to care. Pete was sitting on the floor, with a pencil in one hand and a clicker in the other, trying to train the cat again.

“You’re already making out with the dude at work,” Pete pointed out, “isn’t that the _hard_ step to accomplish?”

“You’d think so.” Mars watched the cat bump her nose on the pencil’s eraser, and Pete hurriedly tried to, with one hand, click the clicker and dispense a treat. It was a confusing process to Mars. “Figuring out if they’re into guys should be the hardest part! And _he_ kissed _me!”_ Mars groaned. “But he freaks out about – well. Everything. Not just someone like, walking in on us. But if someone sees him talking to me, he runs off. Maybe he’s just very, very closeted.”

“And yet, he let a random dude at work hit on him.” Pete shook his head. “Mars.” He turned towards Mars, gave him a pointed look.

“What?”

“Dude.” Pete arched his eyebrows. When Mars still didn’t get it, he went on. “He’s scared of what happened to _you.”_

And, well. Probably. Cole may have even heard about it; the construction world was an incredibly small one, and construction workers were huge gossips. Cole probably had wide-reaching radar when it came to homophobia, too.

“But then wouldn’t he _want_ to take it away from work?”

“Probably he would. But he probably doesn’t think _you’d_ want to.” It made sense, sort of.

“I don’t want to scare him off.”

“Mars,” Pete said again. “I don’t wanna sound like an elementary school teacher, but you have to be yourself. You’re a direct guy, so be direct. If he doesn’t respond well to directness, well.”

“Then he won’t like me when he finds out more about me,” Mars sighed. It was true. Mars couldn’t _stop_ himself from being direct. He didn’t do subtle, he didn’t do passive or indirect or halfway. If that wasn’t right for Cole… maybe Mars wasn’t right for him, either.

“I’m not saying like, terrify him. But be yourself.” Pete turned back to the cat, who’d begun chewing on the pencil. “Baby girl, no.”

                Mars closed his eyes, sighing out a long breath. Sometimes Mars wanted to – not shake Cole, exactly, but take him gently by the shoulders, kiss his cheeks, stroke his hair, look into his pale green eyes and tell him, “no one fucking cares if you kiss me.” That was probably what Pete meant, by Mars’ directness; he couldn’t, _couldn’t,_ just go along with things without saying how he felt. It was practically bursting out of him, wanting to tell Cole _I really, really want to get to know you._ He didn’t know how to get things he wanted without making his intentions clear, couldn’t subtle shimmy his way into the position he wanted without being obvious about it. Mars wanted desperately to solve the problem by being upfront, was happy to lay himself out to be hurt again if it meant getting his point across.

 _No one fucking cares if you kiss me,_ Mars wanted to insist, but it wasn’t true. People cared; people cared enough to hurt him for it, before. But – Mars still wanted to. He wanted to live on a planet where it could be just them, where nothing mattered but this.

 

Mars was going to build up to it, wait longer, as long as he could. He couldn’t be indirect, but he could be patient, up to a point. But – then he started worrying, because what if something happened? He didn’t even have Cole’s phone number, could come in tomorrow and find that Cole had been resassigned to a new jobsite. And Cole was nuzzling Mars’ cheek, arms around Mars’ neck, and Mars’ heart would break if he let this go so easily. People changed jobsites constantly, and it was entirely possible that Mars could spend the next few years traveling in Cole’s circles but never intersecting his orbit.

“Hey, I wanted to-” he started, and the nervous look in Cole’s eyes made him stop again, lean in to kiss Cole again, soothe away the worry. Just another moment, because he didn’t want Cole to be afraid.

The door must have opened, but Mars hadn’t heard it, and Cole must not have either, because he leapt backwards at the sound of his foreman’s voice. “Oh, hey,” Andrew said. Cole gave the softest whimper Mars had ever heard, eyes huge. Andrew, on the other hand, barely seemed to register it.  “Just looking for my earphones, you know, those over-ear ones I have,” he said, looking around and spotting them on a nearby cart. “Awesome, I thought I’d lost them. They’re like a hundred and fifty bucks, and I already lost a pair while I was out here. Don’t forget to lock up when you leave,” he added, and meandered back out.

“Huh,” Mars shrugged, looking to Cole. Cole was staring after Andrew, and Mars couldn’t quite tell the extent of his nervousness. “He seemed cool,” Mars said, hoping to comfort him. Cole nodded slowly. Maybe he was coming around to it? Mars still felt like he was treading on thin ice, though, couldn’t put his finger on exactly why. Something was wrong, he thought, but couldn’t specify why he thought that. The way Cole looked back at the door, maybe, or the set of his jaw. Mars just didn’t know him well enough to read him like that.

“What were you saying?” Cole asked. Something in the way he held his shoulders, maybe. Mars didn’t want to do it now. It felt like the wrong time, but now Cole did look nervous, and Mars couldn’t just make something up and hope Cole believed him.

“I wanted to ask if you’d go out with me this weekend,” Mars said, “I’d really like to.” It wasn’t the right time, he _knew_ that, but he was incapable of lying, Cole would know Mars was keeping something from him and would worry about it. But everything felt shifted, off-kilter from the changed gravity between them, disrupted by Andrew’s appearance.

“Um.” Cole swallowed, looked down. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to… to do that. I don’t know. I just, what if… It’s too…” He rubbed the back of his neck, looked at Mars and then away, and bit his bottom lip. “Maybe we should just keep it…”

“At work,” Mars said, felt ridiculously like crying. The pained look on Cole’s face made him wonder if he’d been wrong – what if it was all those things, and one more? What if he just – just didn’t want Mars like that? What if Mars was just the cute guy at work who was fun to make out with, and it wasn’t worth the risk to get further involved? “That’s okay,” Mars managed, even though his throat felt like it had closed up. “I understand. I just wanted to ask.”

He didn’t want to do this, if Cole didn’t want him. As much as Mars wanted to be the kind of person who was happy just being around someone he liked, needing nothing else – Mars did need more. He needed to feel wanted. Telling Cole that right now felt like more than he could handle, though, because for all his directness, he didn’t want to face this head-on. All the infinite things they could have been suddenly felt cloying in their vastness, and he couldn’t breathe.

“I’m gonna go,” he said, swallowed hard. “I gotta, um. We have our safety meeting today, so. I should be on time, it’s my turn to read from the paper, and stuff.”

He left, and the pull of Cole’s gravity was hard to resist until suddenly, he was so far away that he felt like he was floating, felt nothing at all.

\--

Cole had ruined it.

                Mars – sweet, fearless Mars – had asked him on a date, and Cole had _hurt him._ He was still spinning from what had happened just before, felt turned around and upside-down, and he hadn’t known what to do. Mars wanted to go on a date, to do this in public, in sight of everyone, and Cole was scrambling. His foreman had just walked in, had seen Cole kissing another man in the electric room, and he _didn’t look surprised._ Maybe he already knew, maybe he could tell, maybe Cole was as obviously gay as he’s always feared, and he kept seeing the evidence of that. It made him feel – feel _doomed,_ feel trapped, like everyone knew so everyone would find out, and sooner or later, he’d start losing people again.

                _I had no idea,_ his mother had said, and Cole had felt so stupid for telling her. If he hadn’t, he could have gone on secretly forever, and kept his family. That had been what he’d resolved to do, but now, finding out that his only plan for success was doomed – that other people could _tell,_ just by looking at him – he was going to have nothing. He was going to lose just like he’d lost before.

                Cole didn’t want to _lose_ any more. He’d lost his parents, his younger sister. He’d lost the life he thought he’d have when he couldn’t afford college on his own, and had left Stanford for the Air Force. He’d committed himself to his plan, thinking that maybe, if he could just – just hide it well enough, maybe he’d even regain what he’d lost.

                All that seemed impossible now. He _couldn’t hide it,_ and worse – somehow worse, part of him didn’t want to. Part of him wanted to really be in love more than he wanted his old life back. It was worse, being halfway committed, because he wanted what he’d lost, but he wanted _Mars,_ wanted to return home and wanted to make a new one on an entirely new planet.

                He’d ruined. Mars had all-but fled, because Cole hurt him, and now Cole couldn’t be with him, couldn’t go back but also couldn’t have the only thing he’d wanted more than home.

                Going back to work after lunch was a disaster. Cole was busy, wiring the exit signs and lights in the electric room, testing one over and over that stubbornly refused to turn on, tripping the breaker over and over. And he couldn’t stop _thinking,_ wanted to just leave and go find Mars, but what would he say? What could he do? He might run into Andrew, or someone else, who would know what Cole wanted from Mars as soon as they saw Cole, and it was a horrible vertigo from being stuck in one place, and Cole didn’t know what to _do._ He wanted to go home, he wanted Mars, he wanted to just want _one thing_ and know how to get it, couldn’t stand being torn in half and lost halfway between two places.

                Everything felt like it was closing in on him, and even in the nearly-empty 2PM jobsite, all the space felt crushing, and Cole did something he’d done a hundred thousand times – he cut a wire.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading my super ultra specific construction AU!!! Bringing fanfiction to the jobsite, one romantic electric-room kiss at a time.

On Monday, Mars still wasn’t ready. He’d spent all weekend moping, and when he slid into his car on Monday morning, he couldn’t make himself turn on the ignition. He sat there until past five-thirty, and then he’d drawn in a hitching breath and texted his foreman _having car trouble, won’t make it in today,_ then went back to bed.

He wasn’t the type to mope, but. But it was Cole. It was being rejected by Cole, and realizing that there was one reason Mars had overlooked. After all, his ex-boyfriend hadn’t thought having Mars was worth the risk, so why wouldn’t Cole think the same? There was inherent risk, Mars had lived through proof of that himself, and there had to be something _worth_ the risk. Maybe Mars wasn’t it, for Cole.

He spent Monday feeling sorry for himself, and on Tuesday morning, Mars forced himself to go to work. There was the tiniest chance he was wrong, after all. He just – just wanted to talk to Cole once more. If Cole was scared, that was something they could fight through together, if he wanted Mars. So – once more. Mars would try, tell Cole _I want to date you, and if you’re scared, we’ll do whatever we have to so that it feels safe._ If Cole didn’t want to, if Mars had been right and he was just uninterested, well, it was a risk Mars was going to take. He’d survive, if so.

Tuesday began with the safety meeting, and Mars looked around for Cole, shoulders slumping when he wasn’t in sight. Maybe Mars was early, but he didn’t see Cole standing with the other electricians already present. It was fine, though. This probably wasn’t the place to see Cole for the first time again. He tuned out the beginning of the safety meeting, thinking back to last week, when Megaphone’s question had been “who does the future belong to?” and the crowd’s best guess had been a bewildered “…our kids?” only for the answer to actually be “those who believe in it.” Cole had whispered “our kids? The Chinese? The Jedi?” while Mars tried really hard not to laugh out loud.

“Power has been turned on,” a new speaker was saying; someone important, judging by his pristine hard hat and clean polo shirt. “We are requiring everyone who goes into the electric rooms to sign in to the sheet on the door, and you need permission from the electrical foreman in that building to enter.”

“We need everyone to be alert and to look out for your own safety,” Megaphone continued, “We unfortunately did have an electrocution accident last week.” A gasp, particularly from electricians, who would know that word meant _fatal._ Mars turned towards the nearest Loewen group, looking for Cole again. “A _shock,”_ Megaphone corrected himself. “One of our electricians was injured last week, at the end of the day on Friday.”

Mars’ heart started to race, and he started looking around more frantically, searching the groups of electricians for Cole. He was here, somewhere. It had been someone else. Cole was much too careful.

“Guys, it can happen to anyone. You need to be responsible for your own safety, and aware of your surroundings. All of the danger tape and rules – it’s all in place to protect you.” He kept going, and then it was translated into Spanish, and Mars couldn’t find Cole. He slipped through the crowd, finding one crew of electricians he didn’t know, another. Where was Cole’s crew? Where was _Cole?_ Why had the safety guy kept talking, and not told them if the electrician was okay? _Where was Cole?_

The meeting dispersed before Mars could find him, and he felt sick as he watched people streaming by him. It couldn’t have been Cole. Cole was so careful, so precise about everything. It couldn’t be Cole, and Mars wanted to go to the safety guy who claimed it could happen to everyone, and tell him _but not Cole._ It couldn’t happen to Cole.

The wait was agonizing. Mars went back to his work area, fussed with tools for as long as he could stand, giving the electricians time to leave their laydown. As soon as he could, he bolted to find one of them. At least they were easy to find; even a lone cart was easily identifiable, between the tools and the neon-liquid water bottles. Electricians always seemed to have those stupid water enhancers, and when Mars spotted a cart with a water bottle with electric green water in it, he looked around for the accompanying electrician.

On the other side of the ducts, he found Sal, the guy who had asked him for a male adaptor a few weeks ago, bending three quarter inch conduit.

“Hey!” Mars hurried over, “is Cole here today?” His answer was obvious even before Sal spoke, a grimace appearing on his face. “Oh, shit,” Mars breathed. It couldn’t have been Cole. Not his Cole.

“I think he’s okay,” Sal said, but that wasn’t good enough. Mars needed to hold Cole himself, _know._ “Andrew said he’s okay.”

“What happened?” Mars wished, ridiculously, that he hadn’t left work on Friday. How could he just _leave_ at two-thirty like everything was going to be fine?

“He got bit, I think 277. Must have been, because it didn’t throw him, and I think he was working on the lights.” The words didn’t make enough sense to Mars, but thankfully, Sal seemed to realize that. “408 volts throws you,” he added, “277 makes you hold on. I think he got lucky though, he fell off the ladder.”

“That’s _lucky?”_ He’d never felt so _other_ from the electricians; they knew what happened to Cole, had their own language and familiarity with shocks, had been talking about him hours before Mars knew what happened.

“It stopped the shock,” Sal explained, “you’re a lot better off with a broken arm. So that was good. They took him to the hospital, you gotta get checked out – your heart, and stuff? It’s crazy, too, he’s so careful usually, you know? He’s the dude that follows every single LOTO rule. Whenever Andrew isn’t here, Cole’s always queen for the day, you know? He’s like. Our best guy.”

“Do you have his number?” Mars asked, hoarse. Cole had been in the hospital, had to be checked out for serious injuries, Mars needed so much more than _I think he’s okay._ “We’re friends, but… but I never got his number.” If Cole broke something, he wouldn’t be back, not for a while. Maybe never to Mars’ jobsite, and Mars just wanted to know he was _okay,_ to see Cole himself, know he was okay.

Sal passed along the number, and if Mars had service, he probably would have called immediately. As it were, someone was doubtlessly wondering where the hell he’d gone, and he at least had confirmation that Cole was okay. Besides, he realized, as he wandered back towards his cart, he didn’t even know what to say when Cole picked up. Checking his pockets revealed that he didn’t even have his own phone; he must have left it at home, his odd Monday off and overall unhappy mood throwing him off his routine. He didn’t have his phone, and he didn’t seem to have remembered his lunch, either. Cole, disappeared Cole, was ruining him, before Mars had even found out what had happened.

He didn’t have the ability to wait until after work; Mars borrowed AJ’s phone and called at break, and the person who picked up wasn’t Cole.

“Hello, Cole’s phone,” a woman answered.

“Hi, um. My name’s Mars,” he started, and she broke in before he could go on.

“Oh my god,” she said, “I know who you are. First off, he’s okay. That’s why you’re calling, right? He doesn’t have your number,” she added, like an afterthought. “He wasn’t kidding about it just being making out, God.”

“I know, I asked his coworker for his. I just…” he trailed off. Just what, anyways? He knew Cole was okay, Sal had said so. Mars was, after all, the guy Cole had rejected. This woman was right, whoever she was. Mars was just, and nothing more, the guy Cole kissed at work. “I know this is weird, because he just dumped me and all, but I heard what happened and…”

“He dumped you?” she asked. Mars bit the inside of his cheek, reluctant to answer. He shouldn’t even be telling all this to her, he didn’t know who she was. He didn’t know any of the important people in Cole’s life. Part of him wanted to talk to Cole, and part didn’t. Something about not being able to see him, Mars felt ungrounded, untethered.

“I just wanted to make sure he was okay,” Mars managed. “You don’t even have to tell him I called.”

“He’s going to be okay,” she said, “but – shouldn’t I tell him? He’s asleep right now, but-”

“No, um.” She was right. Cole didn’t even have Mars’ number, probably for a reason. And Cole _just_ got hurt, he wasn’t about to dive headfirst into something else risky, which it was clear he thought Mars was. “I shouldn’t… I just wanted to make sure he was okay.”

“Alright,” she said, and her voice was gentle, sad. “Well, he’s got your number, so…”

“It’s not mine,” Mars sighed, “I forgot my phone, and, well. It doesn’t matter. It’s okay. He’s okay, right?”

“He’s okay.” Even if Cole didn’t want him that way, Mars couldn’t wrench himself from Cole’s orbit, couldn’t make himself stop caring, stop wanting. Once the possibility had gotten into his head, he couldn’t shake himself free. Sure, it could be that Cole was too scared, but it was entirely likely that he just didn’t _want_ Mars. It had happened before.

The rest of the day passed slowly. Mars kept finding himself holding the entirely wrong tool, grabbing a roll of tape when he’d wanted a screw, forgetting things on top of ducts and having to go back up and grab them. He was drifting, too tired to scramble back to earth. Even when the day was over, he nearly walked into the turnstile because he’d forgotten to scan his ID card. When he got to his car, he almost passed it, because it didn’t look like his. Mars stopped, blinked.

Cole. He was waiting at Mars’ car, almost unrecognizable in non-work clothes even though they weren’t all that different from the usual, but it was enough to take him out of his usual context, place him into Mars’ real, after-work life, where he’d never been before. His left arm was in a cast, a pained weariness clinging to him, like it was taking the rest of his energy just to stand there.

“What’re you doing here?” Mars asked, wanted to reach for him, refrained. “Are you okay? I heard – I heard.”

“It was stupid,” Cole mumbled, “I know better. I wasn’t thinking. But that doesn’t matter-”

“Cole, you should be at _home,_ you’re-”

“I needed to talk to you,” Cole said, and it was pleading.

“Okay, well. You at least wanna sit?” Mars gestured towards the car, because Cole just looked so beaten up. “Did you drive here?” Cole shook his head, and Mars unlocked the car. “Unless you don’t want, um. There’s still everyone-” he looked around, still saw other guys walking through the parking lot. Cole panicked when people saw them talking in passing, alone in Mars’ car seemed like a much more obvious sign.

“I don’t care,” Cole said, and although he was reaching for the passenger door handle, not looking at Mars, it was the softest thing Mars had ever heard from him, small and determined and so very soft. Mars was helpless; he got in the car.

At first, Cole was quiet. He watched the other construction workers walking by, unflinching, and even in the middle of everything, Mars felt a smidgen of warm pride; Cole was with _him,_ everyone was seeing it, he was special to Cole. Unless, of course, Cole was here to fully break things off with him, because Mars’ phone call had alerted him to how overly attached Mars was.

He was about to ask, to just get it over with, when Cole reached over, taking Mars’ hand in his unhurt one. Every thought Mars had fled.

“I’m sorry,” Cole said, still so soft, “I really – I really do want to go out with you.” Was Cole letting him down easily? Mars suddenly had no words left, helpless. “I’ve never dated a guy before. I’ve never really been out. I told my parents a long time ago, and I haven’t seen them since, so I’d been thinking… I’d get everything back, if I could just… _not_ be, anymore. But then when people started finding out, and they didn’t freak out about it, I thought it was because I’m _obviously…_ you know. Which meant I had no chance of hiding it, and getting any of my family back, and I _panicked._ And I just…” Cole exhaled slowly, still not meeting Mars’ eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with it,” Cole finally said. “And you…”

When he didn’t go on for a long, long moment, Mars ventured, “me?”

“I really fucking like you,” Cole whispered, “I realized that being- being gay is a thing that could make me _happy.”_

Mars wanted to kiss him, sweet, sad Cole, who had never even considered that being with a guy would bring him happiness. It all made sense: suddenly, Cole didn’t like his own plan anymore, was terrified to make the leap and unwilling to go back.

“I know it can be scary,” Mars said, squeezed Cole’s hand, “but it’s because the people who hate it are so much louder than everyone else. Not everyone’s like that.”

“I let it freak me out,” Cole sighed, “I had a couple bad coworkers, that kind of thing. And you heard about last year, I guess, that – I think plumber?” he shuddered, and Mars knew he had to tell Cole.

“The boyfriend was the plumber,” he said quietly. “The guy that got beat up was me.”

Cole stared, pale green eyes wide. “And you still,” he waved a hand towards the jobsite, “with me. What if someone saw you? What if I wasn’t actually into dudes? What if someone found out?” Mars shrugged, half smiled.

“I really wanted to kiss you,” he said. Cole gave him a bewildered, affectionate look, and Mars just knew – this was it, nothing was going to scare Cole away now. There was a dedication in Cole he hadn’t recognized before: a misplaced committing to his plan to hide, a determination to keep himself afloat alone, an intensity in his deliberateness that made it so hard for him to reconcile wanting to change what he wanted. “If you could get _shocked_ and still want to be an electrician, I guess I can see how you could see what happened to me and still want to go for it,” Mars said, and Cole smiled at him.

“No matter what happens, I’m still an electrician,” he said, “and even if bad shit happens, like it did to you, I’m still – still gay. Bad things happening doesn’t change who I am.”

And Mars – he laughed so hard he couldn’t _breathe,_ and when he could finally gasp for air, Cole was giving him a perplexed look. “Typical fucking electrician,” Mars managed, “equating being an electrician to something you’re born as. Every goddamn thing we say about you guys is true.”

“I was meant to be an electrician. It feels like I’m where I belong, and it’s what brings good things into my life,” Cole said, green eyes faraway, and Mars knew he wasn’t really talking about electrical work. “This is what I’m supposed to be.”

He leaned over and kissed Mars, and the short distance between them felt like the last few miles of a galaxy-wide journey, Cole finally coming home to Mars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More fic at my tumblr! icehot13


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